It remains to be seen if Chris Bosh will be medically cleared to play for the Heat this season, but according to his teammates, the forward remains anxious to make his return to the court, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel relays. “Yeah, of course,” Tyler Johnson said regarding Bosh’s desire to suit up. “I mean, he was sitting out the same amount of time I was. I remember he was eager to get back last year. So we had those talks a lot last year. So I can only assume that he’s kind of itching to get back and play in actual games.”
Johnson also noted that the team will need to change its style from previous seasons, given all the new faces on the roster, Winderman adds. “We had a lot of veterans who had a lot of playoff experience, guys who had won multiple championships on the team,” Johnson said. “So, yeah, it’s definitely a big-time turnover in that aspect. But you can’t really doubt people who come in the gym to get better every day. So I think we’re going to have change our playing style just a little bit from where we were last year. But I’m excited for it.”
Here’s more from the East:
- In his look at how Nets GM Sean Marks has altered the franchise’s approach, Miles Wray of RealGM noted that the executive has placed higher value on veterans, intends to allow head coach Kenny Atkinson to lead the rebuilding program and is focusing on landing restricted free agents.
- The Sixers progress this season shouldn’t be measured by whether or not the team makes the playoffs or how many additional wins the squad racks up, but on how much the young roster’s play improves over the course of the campaign, writes Bob Cooney of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The scribe notes that an improvement of 29 wins over 2015/16 would likely be need to snag a spot in the postseason this season.
- The Pistons signed Boban Marjanovic this offseason with the expectation that Aron Baynes would opt out of his deal for 2017/18 in order to land a more lucrative contract elsewhere, Keith Langlois of NBA.com writes in response to a reader question asking the likelihood the big man would remain in Detroit beyond this season.
The Nets as presently constituted may turn out to be the worst basketball team ever assembled. This might be the NBA version of the Washington Generals who have lost 50,000 straight games to the Harlem Globetrotters. I doubt the Nets win 12 games all year. They have no players other than Brook Lopez. Jeremy Lin took the money again and should. Other than these two they don’t have an NBA caliber player on their roster. They have no draft choices until 2019 having traded away unprotected draft choices for dinosaurs Pierce and Garnett. Adding insult to injury the Celtics have the right to trade draft picks with the Nets again so the Celtics are assured a lottery pick, perhaps a top 3 pick. How sick is that. The new GM Marks couldn’t even attract one quality free agent with tons of cap space. This is a moribund franchise with absolutely no future! The NETS will be lucky to win a game before Xmas. 11-71 for the season would be overachieving.